Grandpa and John Wayne and the soldiers of fortune
Men who’ would say Hemingway was a fairy
Because he wrote books
Get up before dawn, run five miles and do fifty pushups
Speak the language: AWOL, MIA, Beaucoup, PAX. Shine
Your boots and stand up straight
Yes, Sir
Emotions outlawed: pity, fear, and wonderment
Practice assembling your gun
I’ve just stopped believing in unicorns
And playing with dolls
Grandpa says my hair is greasy
It is called grunge, I think
It is called hippie communist, he thinks
I am ordered to take a shower
In the bathroom: the smell of shaving cream
And the sound of Frank Sinatra
To glimpse oneself there
And the glimpse of a glance
Doubled over like origami
Of light and water
The puzzle of adolescence
Flash grazing
My tender swelling buds
The darting white flesh
Crisp as a wild orchid
Peeking out from the bamboo
Forgiving this trespass
It is like crawling through a maze of tunnels
In the long Vietnamese night
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